President Needs A Lesson On Environment, Economy

WASHINGTON — To some people, especially some in the Bush administration, the United Nations Earth Summit starting next week in Rio de Janeiro always has been an either-or proposition.

Either the United States had to avoid making specific commitments about controlling emissions that contribute to global warming or it had to face the threat of slower economic growth in the years ahead.

President Bush long ago forfeited his claim to being the environment president by undermining key enforcement provisions of the 1990 Clean Air Act, which briefly stood as one of his few domestic accomplishments.

Any chance he could regain the title before the election evaporated when he refused to agree with other Rio participants to a treaty bringing carbon dioxide emissions down to 1990 levels by the end of the decade.

In the case of both the clean air law and the Rio summit, the either-or scenario was paramount in the administration's mind.

With this country struggling to escape a long recession, Bush obviously was right to be concerned about the relationship of the environment and the economy. In a fast-changing world, though, the problem is that the president has had a largely one-dimensional view of the issue.

Bush is able to speak with great ease about a new world order when it comes to political and military issues. But when he talks about the environment and the economy, he is suddenly frozen in the past. Perhaps the president is listening too much to his old buddies in the oil business or to his pals who run the big oil-producing nations.

In any case, there is another way of approaching the issue, even if Bush does not acknowledge it.

"It requires restructuring the global economy, dramatically changing human reproductive behavior, and altering values and lifestyles," says Lester R. Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute, an environment policy research organization based in Washington.

Brown sees the need for an environmental revolution, the

consequences of which would produce economic and social change as significant as the agricultural or industrial revolutions. But the United States need not fear these consequences, Brown says, because it already has the technology needed to cope with an environmental revolution.

What it takes to make this happen is a new way of thinking, a new set of criteria to guide behavior: Does a governmental or industrial policy reduce production of toxic waste? Slow population growth? Reduce air pollution and acid rain? Lessen soil erosion? Slow generation of radioactive waste?

It's easy for the White House to dismiss environmentalists such as Brown as fuzzy-headed liberals with no responsibility for the economy. Still, a long, sober report by the Office of Technology Assessment, the analytical arm of Congress, confirms there are major opportunities for the manufacturers of American technology who respond to global environmental needs.

"Contrary to the claims of some that helping the environment means hurting jobs, saving the planet from the global warming can mean jobs and profits for American industries," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., one of several members of Congress who sought the report.

The report was presented recently to the Senate Government Affairs Committee, and Chairman John H. Glenn, D-Ohio, was highly complimentary. Glenn has long preached the virtues of energy conservation, research and development.

Appearing before the committee, John Reinstein, a deputy assistant secretary of state, said all the right things in agreeing with the report.

But those who have dealt with government were less than glowing in their accounts of the experience. They suggested the administration is still clinging to the old world order. Terrence P. Hoye, marketing manager for a United Technologies Corp. subsidiary that sells gas turbines, and others told the committee the government could be much more active in identifying export opportunities for energy-efficient U.S. industries.

Glenn and Lieberman were not satisfied at getting platitudes from the administration. Referring to recognized U.S. expertise in efficient energy production, Glenn commented, "Considering America's current dire economic situation, it boggles my mind that our government hasn't done more to promote this industry."

Concerned that other countries -- notably Japan and Germany -- had gotten the jump on the United States in exports, Lieberman added, "We were at the head of something but we're slipping back."

The lesson from all this is obvious: The environment and the economy need not be enemies and can reinforce each another. But it will take more than a presidential photo opportunity in Rio to make it happen.

The writer is the senior correspondent in The Courant's Washington bureau